>Stop, Listen & Be Specific

>The women’s group that I am part of is currently reading the book Confessions of a Prayer Wimp. As you can guess, the book is about prayer and its effect on the life of the author. It’s a good book in a lot of ways. Short chapters, easy reading, very thought provoking questions, you get the idea. The two most valuable points that I’ve read are that we should: sometimes stop praying and just listen, and to pray specifically.

I never thought that praying specifically was a problem until this week. I’m good at telling God, “Help me!”, or “what do I do NOW?” when panicked or in a pinch. I’m also really good at saying it over and over and over and over again without listening for any help that He may be nudging me toward! I had one of these moments last night at a church meeting. We were given some rather bleak news (which I can’t go into here) just before the close of the meeting, and immediately my mind started going around and around on the what’re-we-going-to-do-ousel. That lasted until I got into bed for the night.

As I lay there, I thought back to the chapter we read earlier that morning about praying specifically for a need, and that’s what I quickly did before drifting off into my nightly coma. When I woke this morning I felt the immediate, pressing need to pray again. So… I did, and I have been on and off for most of the day.

To feel like I’m being directly instructed to pray and to do so with such specificity is a disorienting feeling for me. I can only recall one other time that that happened, and that was almost thirteen years ago when my brother’s life was in the balance. The result was positive then, and I’ve got to believe that it will be this time too.